Discover Your Dharma: A Vedic Guide to Finding Your Purpose

Introduction

Why the F Am I Here?

The eternal question may have popped up after a sweaty yoga class when you were pretty sure you left your body, while watching an epic sunset that no Instagram filter could do justice to, or at an awkward holiday party where your uncle is trying to engage in a political debate. It feels like such a big question that moments after asking, we often dismiss the massive void of not knowing the answer.

We busy ourselves by playing ping-pong with the world—responding to our overflowing inboxes, never-ending to-do lists, social media feeds, and today’s stressor—all distractions from the biggest eternal question. Why are we even here? This thought lingers over our actions, but very few of us actually entertain it deeply enough to find the answer. It’s like getting dropped off at a random party and wondering if they have guacamole or salsa, without even wondering why you’re at the party in the first place.

We spend our lives making ourselves busy and filling time, not realizing that we’ve been given this time for a reason. The very fact that you’re at the party means you have something very important to bring, and the party won’t be complete without you sharing it. More important, you won’t be complete without sharing it.

I know you may be thinking, Sure, I see other people having these profound purposes, but I’m not sure it applies to me. Do you think the universe happened to slip up and forget to give only you a purpose? If that were the case, wouldn’t you be the most special person of all? You have a purpose. If you’re here, there is a reason. This lifetime is about figuring out what it is.

If you don’t believe me about having a purpose, I’m just going to lay it out to you and tell you your dharma right here on page 2. Your dharma is to raise consciousness. And so is mine. And so is your mom’s, your bestie’s, your partner’s. We are all here to elevate the vibration of this planet we call home. However, the way each of us does it is going to be unique. We all bring different elements to the party—some of us bring the dance moves, others the snacks, others the decorations, other the rituals, others the stories, others the magic tricks. Together we create the most epic party called life.

Your dharma is the truest expression of who you are. When you’re living in alignment with your dharma, there is no separation between the outer and inner you. Your external reality reflects your internal world. Every aspect of your life is a conscious choice. You are tapped into an endless stream of creativity, passion, and inspiration, which is the cosmos running through you. You have goals and also remain open to the mystery of the journey, trusting that your dharma will take you exactly where you need to be. You allow yourself to unfold into who you are becoming and celebrate each stage of your journey, knowing it’s preparing you for the next. You feel completely alive, awakened in your senses, with an ignited flame burning in your heart. This is living your dharma.

Most of us live our lives feeling numb. We eat food, but we’re still hungry. We scroll, but we’re still searching. We have success, but no satisfaction. We have the information, but no clarity or embodiment. We spend our whole lives looking for something to fill this void where only dharma can reside. Your flavor may be chasing status and spin classes, or bad boys and booze, but both are distractions keeping us from the truth of who we are. This discovery is revealed only when we surrender to the path of dharma.

Living your purpose is the ultimate form of self-love. When you say yes to answering your higher calling, everything you’ve been seeking naturally manifests. The fulfillment, happiness, abundance, clarity, confidence, worthiness, and peace you’ve been yearning for effortlessly arise because you are living in harmony with your truth. There is no more striving—you simply are you, full-time. This is called embodying your dharma, your soul’s purpose.

Your dharma is your divine purpose on this planet, your soul’s essence, the unique vibration only you can carry out in the world.

To discover your dharma is to realize the truth of who you are. You cannot know your truth and not shift your life to be in alignment with your dharma. You can’t unsee what the third eye saw. Once you experience it, anything else will feel suffocating.

My Personal Path to Dharma

I never set out on a mission to discover my dharma. Like most of us, I never gave it much thought. As a child, I just knew I wanted to help people in any way possible. This led to me volunteering with NGOs in many developing countries, teaching English at orphanages in Zimbabwe, advocating for human rights in factories in Vietnam, and building preschools in Nicaragua. In college, I was teaching health and sanitation in the slums of New Delhi, India, when my own health started to deteriorate. I couldn’t digest food without crippling pain and stopped getting my period for two years. My bones were constantly getting injured, I had become underweight, and I was losing my hair. My body stopped producing hormones and was essentially going into perimenopause—at age twenty-one. I went to countless doctors, who each prescribed me a long list of medications to take indefinitely to live a semi-functioning life.

I knew intuitively that there had to be a deeper reason for my body’s imbalance and took matters into my own hands. This journey of self-healing led me to discovering Ayurveda, the world’s oldest health system and the sister science of yoga, based on the mind-body connection. When I read about the three Dosha archetypes in Ayurveda, especially the Vata Dosha (air archetype), it was like I was reading my autobiography. Every imbalance I experienced was listed. But more than that, my personality was described to a tee: creative, visionary, thinks outside the box, but also anxious and overwhelmed with thoughts. Never before had I felt so understood.

I spent the next two years studying Ayurveda in India, finding ways to merge it with modern nutritional science and plant-based recipes. It was as if I was relearning a language my soul had spoken for thousands of years. After completely reversing all of my health problems and shifting my personality to be more driven, dedicated, and grounded (which was my true nature behind the imbalances), I knew I had to make this wisdom accessible to people who suffered physical and mental imbalances like me and couldn’t find a cure. Though I had never written a book or even met an author, I embarked on this journey and discovered myself in the process.

This process led me to living alone in huts in India and the jungle of Bali and writing my book while rewriting myself. I had to leave everything behind, including the approval of my family, who threatened to disown me for choosing an alternative path. It caused me to reprogram my thoughts and limiting beliefs and realize how much I had been living for external validation. I didn’t know if I was going to make it, or even what making it looked like, but I knew for certain that the path I was previously on was not where I wanted to end up. There were so many times I considered just giving up, choosing a normal life, and making my family happy—but I knew I wouldn’t be honoring my soul. I had to let go of my need for my family’s approval, but more important, I had to give full approval to myself to follow this path without knowing where it would take me.

Those years were a battle between anchoring belief and quivering fear, moments of complete clarity and others of complete doubt, and feelings of total alignment and total failure, which brought me to this concept of dharma. There was a reason why my journey was so difficult—it was preparing me with the strength I needed to truly share this wisdom with the world.

Just as you may, I had a serious case of the Who am I’s and What ifs, and there were moments I let them drive the show. But what topped all of those fears were the Imagines. Imagine if I was able to get this book out into the world. Imagine the lives it would touch. Imagine the difference it would make. The Imagines ended up winning the battle. This led to me writing two books, Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda and Eat Feel Fresh: A Contemporary Plant-Based Ayurvedic Cookbook, which went on to become bestsellers. Oh, and to walking up to Deepak Chopra at a conference and to him writing the foreword (I’ll share that story with you in Chapter 2). It brought me to launch the Highest Self Podcast because I was genuinely so hungry for deep, spiritual conversation; it quickly became the number one spirituality podcast on iTunes, currently with over sixteen million downloads. And it brought me back to this concept of dharma.

The reason we balance the mind and body is so we can regain touch with the soul. True wellness is not just perfect digestion or clear skin, but knowing the truth of who you are and shifting your life into alignment with that. The purpose of health is so you don’t have to worry about health anymore and instead can bring your energy toward focusing on your dharma.

Your dreams are not an accident. The very reason you have them is that within them lies your dharma. You will never have an idea you don’t have the ability to bring to life. That idea chose you as its ideal messenger because you are the perfect person to make it happen. However, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen instantly or easily. The obstacles you must overcome to bring that vision to reality are the training you need to embody your dharma and share it with the world.

You were born with unique gifts that you’re meant to share with others. These gifts may not be fully nurtured, but they are there, waiting for you to tap into them. Perhaps you are aware of these gifts but fear is stopping you from sharing them. Or perhaps your ego won’t allow you to remember what they are (as your ego is just the bodyguard of your soul). Don’t worry—through reading this book and following practices I teach you, you’ll remember. It’s not so much about finding your dharma as much as it’s remembering your dharma. In this book, I’ll be speaking directly to the part of you that knows.

Though my journey began with Ayurveda, the story I ended up sharing again and again was the story behind the story—how I created this reality. I genuinely believe the universe assigned me to one of the most complex, ancient, and unknown topics to show others that if I was able to make Ayurveda happen, you can make ANYTHING happen.

What I’ve realized is Ayurveda doesn’t just inform us about our health, but on a deeper level about who we are. It teaches us to harmonize the mind and body so we can be guided by the subtleties of our souls. In this book, I’ll be sharing with you how your Doshas (Ayurvedic mind-body type) are related to your dharma and how to bring your dharma through your chakras into reality.

Through my podcast, I have interviewed hundreds of people on their dharmic journey and found a common thread. Here it is:

The Dharma Discovery Journey

Stage 1: Self-awareness

You realize there has to be more to this life than what you’ve been living. You know that you have a purpose but have no idea what it is. Frankly, you don’t even know where to start. It feels like you’ve been placed in this life with no choice and simply can’t go on living this way. You know you need a radical change. Through pain or numbness, you are called to take action and transform your life. This is where the seed of dharma is planted.

Stage 2: Self-improvement

You make it a mission to improve yourself. You may begin practicing yoga asanas, following inspirational people on ­Instagram, reading self-help books, listening to motivational speakers, using a meditation app. You’ve begun changing habits that are no longer serving you. This stage is focused on the physical and mental level more than the soul level. This is where the seed of dharma is watered.

Stage 3: Awakening

Your interest shifts from improving yourself to knowing yourself. You begin to realize that you are not your body or your mind, but rather a soul living in a body with a mind. You are hungry to learn about every spiritual topic such as yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, ecstatic dance, shamanism, and more, which may have brought you to the Highest Self Podcast. You may do some solo travel to spiritual destinations like Bali, India, or Peru, or have the desire to. Your entire worldview shifts as you become aware of the limiting beliefs passed down intergenerationally and begin to do the healing work. Your family and friends may not recognize you anymore and label you as crazy. This may be a difficult phase where you face loneliness, but know that you are making these important shifts to come in alignment with your truth. You begin to realize that there is a whole world of possibilities you haven’t been aware of before. This is when the seed of dharma sprouts.

Stage 4: Higher consciousness

You are out of the spiritual closet and no longer feel the need to hide your beliefs to be taken seriously. You have found the practices that resonate with you and begin sharing them, perhaps on social media or with your family, friends, and colleagues. You know that you have a dharma but you aren’t exactly sure what it is and are still in the dabbling stages. It becomes increasingly obvious to you that your current job is not in full alignment with who you are. You continue your spiritual growth through shadow work, ancestral healing, plant medicine, and/or past life regression. You no longer operate from victim consciousness and have realized life is happening for you, rather than to you. You have emerged as an entirely new you and people begin asking you how you did it. This is when the dharma sprout begins to grow.

Stage 5: Stepping into your dharma

Through embodying who you are, you realize the deeper purpose of why you are here. You remember your sacred mission on this planet. Suddenly your worldview transitions from me to we. Your spiritual practice becomes something so much greater than you; it becomes the foundation from which you heal humanity. You are fueled by the cosmos and tapped into universal life force streaming through you. You transform any part of your life that is not in utmost alignment because you see how it is holding you back from your mission. You realize that you are here to be of service and through following your highest joy, you serve the world. You see that you are only a channel for this cosmic wisdom coming through your vessel. This is the space in which you truly embody your dharma and the truth of who you are.

Where are you on your journey?

Most people reading this book are most likely on Stage 4—you are well on your spiritual journey, but you’re missing what that dharma is. You may also be on Stage 3, and your awakening brought you here. You could be on Stage 2, and just reading this has moved you to the soul level. Or perhaps you’re on Stage 1, and somehow this book ended up in your hands—congrats, you’re about to speed track through your growth! No stage is hierarchal and not all of us go through these exactly, but they serve as a baseline of how many people’s dharmic journeys evolve.

I do want to mention that even though you are born with a dharma, that doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. While your dharma is your soul gift on this planet, you also have free will. You can take that gift and stuff it in the closet, never to see the light of day. (Most choose that option—it feels easier to pretend you don’t have a purpose than to confront it head on.) Or you can run with it, share it, and watch it multiply and unfold (I recommend this one). Your dharma is the gift that just keeps giving as soon as you start paying attention.

This book will tackle the most major question of life: What is my soul’s purpose? But this time, we’re taking a new approach, the ancient way. The wisdom of ancient times is making a comeback to guide us on the next level of our evolution. As we awaken, we remember the codes we carry in our body, which inform us of our soul’s purpose for being here. As we unravel the fears, limiting beliefs, and expectations placed upon us by the outside world, we find ourselves realizing that our truth lived inside of us all along. You first have to let go of everything you are not to step into who you truly are.

In this book, I’ll be sharing my unique approach to discovering your dharma through the Doshas and chakras. You’ll discover your Dharma Archetypes and walk away knowing exactly where to focus your energy at this time with your Dharma Blueprint. I’ll be offering you my personal stories, realizations, and reflections on dharma embodiment, with the purpose of illuminating your path. I don’t have all the answers, but I do ask all the questions, and sometimes the answers find me. I am a channel for this sacred wisdom that comes through me from the underlying energy that connects us all.

There are many incredible books out there with more historical and mythological information on the Vedas, which this book does not cover due to its length and nature. I invite you to continue your studies of Vedic teachings, as there are lifetimes of wisdom to uncover.

Right now is the most important time to discover your dharma. We are in the midst of the greatest global awakening in human history and are being asked to step up, shine out, and turn our lights ALL the way on. Frankly, it’s the only way the Earth can come back into balance. It is no coincidence you’re reading this book at this time. Your soul is ready to radiate in ways you didn’t even know were possible.

Hi, I’m Sahara, and it’s great to meet you again in this lifetime. I promise to keep the vibes high, the wisdom deep, and the dharma strong. Let’s level up the vibration of the planet, shall we?

1

Defining Dharma

We’re all on a quest to find happiness. We look for it in people, places, possessions, and all other things, but we still can’t seem to find it. Where is the damn thing?

I’ll tell you. It’s beneath its tree: purpose. Happiness is the fruit that stems from purpose. This fruit cannot grow on its own. We cannot incubate it, confine it in a lab, get only happiness without the roots, sap, and branches it comes with. We all think we want happiness, but what we really should be looking for is purpose.

We may experience moments of joy without purpose, only to go back and look for something else to take us out of our numbness or misery. True happiness comes only from fulfillment. It’s when you can look at all areas of your life and wholeheartedly say, I am living my highest truth.

The universe is benevolent and wants us to live our purpose; therefore it made living our purpose feel good . . . and not living our purpose feel like shit. You feel happiest when you are rocking your gifts because that’s what is best for the whole. Happiness is our natural indicator that we’re living in alignment with our purpose. It is our compass guiding us in the right way. Happiness is not the goal but the byproduct. So instead of searching for happiness, let’s search for fulfillment, and happiness will meet us there.

Happiness is not your purpose. Happiness is a byproduct of living your purpose.

It’s time for us to expand our understanding of what happiness is. We chase for it in fleeting moments, yet at our core, we are already bliss, ananda. Happiness is not a roller coaster ride or raging concert (though those things can certainly make you happy). It’s the emotion that stays between these experiences, knowing that all areas of your life are in alignment with your truth.

Happiness is not about escaping but rather being present where you are. It’s loving the journey, not just hustling through it for the destination. Happiness doesn’t always even look like a smile on your face. Sometimes it’s the fire in your heart that fuels you to change. It’s the yearning inside you to create something larger than yourself and watch it come to reality, through your energy. It’s choosing the challenges of your journey because they are bringing you where you are meant to go. It’s going to bed each night knowing that you gave your all. It’s seeing others benefit from you sharing your